The third book is coming along, and while it’s been difficult finding time to write for some time, it was never put on a shelf. I have been writing down bits and ideas. I only have over 6,000 words, but I thought it could be fun to add up-dates of the progression. I’ll start with a fun little trivia. Can you spot the movie reference in this text?

“She was in a medical lab of sorts. Everything was white and sterile, yet cluttered with beakers, containers, microscopes, scales and a machine that went bing in long even intervals.”

And it came to me – the ending! Sure, I had the major plots of the book laid out, but I didn’t really have a major climax and ending. Sure, stuff happens, and there’s suspense along the way, but now I have a major event that brings together all of the major characters. It’s also giving me a fun opportunity to plot many subtle moments of foreshadowing. It will all come to me – always does!

When Varian and Miranda made it over to the Serroni residence, Lailie and Yuudai were already relaxing in the library with a bottle of wine.
“Check out what we found,” Lailie said while nodding at a thick book on the coffee table. Miranda picked it up and read out loud,

Eugenics Revisited
The Degenerating Human Genome
by Carina Trevena

She flipped the book over and continued to read the endorsements on the back of the dust jacket. One of them read:
“Excellent in-depth analysis of the ethical misconceptions surrounding eugenics.” Ola Zawisza, Ph.D., Molecular Genetics.
[*Dr. Zawisza is a figure known by the four youngsters, as is Carina Trevena.]
“Wow!” was Miranda’s initial response.
“It’s an interesting read,” Lailie continued. “I’ve gotten through about a third of the book and she makes some really solid arguments. She claims humans reached their evolutionary ceiling millennia ago, and while we still birth highly bright individuals, the range of our intelligence has widened and the balance tilted as evolution is being reversed. Instead of the survival of the fittest, people with inferior qualities produce more offspring.”
“But that’s not a new concept,” Varian protested.
“No, but she’s expanded on the idea and how we view the issue ethically. According to Carina, it’s unethical to stand by and not take responsible action. You see, we’re not really devolving; we’re degenerating into lows we’ve never experienced before. We’re producing more mental illness and sociopathic behavior, not just physical illness or lack of intelligence,” Lailie continued.
“So she thinks it’s unethical to let nature run its course?” Miranda asked.
“No, that’s one of her stronger arguments actually; while many are against messing with nature, she claims that we are the way we are because we’ve already messed with nature for so long; it’s what we’ve done to become this way in the first place, and now we need to reverse the damage. She writes that human interference is inevitable, so we might as well do a better job than we have so far, and take better responsibility.”
“By taking over women’s reproductive rights?” Miranda exclaimed, appalled. [*Reference to an earlier piece of insight about Trevena.]

Yuudai stepped forward and joined the conversation.
“No, her ambition is to tackle the beast from multiple angles.” Everyone looked at him. Yuudai usually shied from attention.
“What else do you know?” Varian asked.
“What? No, that’s in the book. I’ve read the whole thing, and a couple of other books she’s published.”

“So, is her main concern with intelligence and mental illness?” Miranda asked Yuudai.
“No, that’s not all. Carina is also concerned with race. She doesn’t have anything against any race, but she’s concerned that the west is falling behind the Chinese who are already well ahead when it comes to genetic engineering, raising a superior population. Carina has been frustrated with western politics and the ideological biases standing in her way to implement her own projects.”
“Well that explains why she intended to do things her own way and go behind the back of, well everyone,” Miranda answered with a bitter tone.
“What?” Yuudai responded, puzzled.
“Oh, we’ll tell you later,” Varian tried to save Miranda’s slip up. “Please continue.”
“Well, she feels strongly about the western heritage, twofold. I’m paraphrasing, but she believes that the western civilization has been a superior instrument in shaping the modern world, but as I mentioned earlier, that also means it’s been a major instrument in the human demise. She not only feels that the west should be preserved as a progressive leader, but that they should be responsible for cleaning up their own mess and not have the Chinese save the world for them.”

“Oh, who gives a shit?” Lailie waved her glass, accidentally splashing some wine on the floor. “Saving the human race – how vain! Does it really matter in the end?”
But Yuudai wasn’t done, and both Varian and Miranda enjoyed his participation – to hear Yuudai’s opinion was rare.

“Here, let me read something,” Yuudai continued and flipped through the book like some people knowingly flip through the Bible or the Quran for verses they know, and then he read out loud:
“Western civilization has brought man through the Hellenistic classical antiquity, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, bringing about the empirical sciences, advancing their world to become a superior template of progress to reshape all civilizations. It is sad to see such a great heritage decline after it’s served as a springboard for all. It has allowed the Chinese to catapult themselves towards superiority while the western world turns against elitism and celebrate their mediocrity.”

“Ouch!” was all Miranda voiced. Yuudai continued:
“In fact, she didn’t approve of the way the science society allowed for mixed races to contribute to the nocturnal population. She felt that we should be a clean race – a clean slate.”

“Yuudai, get me another bottle of wine,” Lailie ordered. Varian and Miranda reacted at her disrespectful tone towards him, but Yuudai just followed her order and left the room. Once he was gone, Varian leaned towards Lailie and demanded to know:
“What’s your deal with him?”
“What? We’re friends,” Lailie answered, nonchalant.
“Friends? And what’s the deal with you lately?” he continued.
“Me? What’s the deal with you guys, that’s what I want to know? But I’m just a little girl so who cares?” Her words were so bitter both Varian and Miranda were taken aback. They hadn’t expected something to actually be wrong. Perhaps it had something to do with her infatuation with Daniel? No one had given it much thought with everything else going on. Lailie sipped the last three drops of wine from her glass.

“YUUDAI!” She yelled, and Yuudai just made it back with another open bottle and filled her glass.
“Varian, Miranda?” Yuudai asked, motioning with the bottle. Sure, they would like some wine, but they seemed to be a bit behind Lailie who was past what should have been her last glass already. When Varian received his wine from Yuudai, he continued where Lailie had left off.
“So guys are the problem, huh? Is this where the two of you have girlie time?” He nodded at Lailie and Miranda.
“Yes, it is,” Miranda said firmly and motioned for the boys to leave the room.

After the doors closed to the library, Miranda fed the fire another log and sat down in an armchair facing Lailie. She studied her for a moment. The animated reflection from the warm flames danced on Lailie’s pale skin like expressionism filling a white canvas, but the art also exposed the emotions within. Lailie’s ice-blue eyes were on fire. If they were going to tackle the issue on boys, Miranda saw no reason to dance around the subject.
“Have you heard from Daniel yet?”

There was a train schedule mounted on the outside wall of the old station in Hibonville, the small town below Pinecrest. Nocsville lay hidden in the opposite direction.
“Oh look!” Miranda noted sarcastically, “Their busy train schedule accommodates two trains per day!”
“Just enough to arrive and leave and experience the entire town in-between,” a voice responded from inside the station. Daniel and Miranda gave each other quizzical looks and stepped inside. There he was, in full uniform behind the ticket booth, his boots up on the desk, leaning back in a squeaky chair with his hands behind his neck, smiling. He had a really shiny name tag that ironically read Rusty.
“I didn’t see you arrive, but when would you like to leave?” Rusty didn’t really think they were going anywhere that day.
“Actually, we walked here to admire this beautiful station,” Daniel quickly responded. Then he turned to Miranda and whispered, “Rusty,” in case she didn’t put two and two together.
“Rusty, we just heard your name mentioned earlier today!” Miranda said bluntly. She didn’t understand why Daniel felt a need to be discreet about it.
“Elmer told us you’re a real authority when it comes to vampires.”
Now it was Daniel’s turn to worry about Miranda’s performance, but Rusty’s eyes lit up.
“Oh yeah, I’ve had my encounters,” Rusty said proudly. “Are you here to inquire about vampires?” he added with a look of suspicion on his face.
“No, not really,” Daniel assured him. “We just thought we’d take a day off and enjoy seeing the town. We’re attending a seminar at Pinecrest.”
“You’re from the professor’s camp?” Rusty straightened himself. “Tell me, have you seen anything suspicious up there? Do you know what to look for?”
“No,” Miranda responded. “We just heard about the vampires this morning. We’re curious where these rumors come from.”
“Rumors? They’re no rumors! I’ve seen them myself and I’ve got a picture to prove it!”
“A photo?”
“Why yes, it’s right there on the wall!” Rusty motioned to the announcement board behind them. They had not paid attention to it on their way in. Now Daniel and Miranda both turned around and stared at the wall. It was cluttered with local newspaper clippings, advertisements, lost cats, postcards and Rusty’s photograph. They both bent forward, squinted their eyes, and zoomed in on the photo. There were people in the foreground attending a small festival, but where was the vampire?
“Is this the photo of the vampire?” Miranda asked, just to make sure.
“Oh yes, just focus on the background. You see there, behind the dumpster?”
Daniel and Miranda repeated their forward bend, squinting at the old faded photo again. Alright, there it was: a dark shadowed entity was standing against the brick wall in the alley behind the dumpster.
“But how do you know this is a vampire?” Miranda asked.
“Because that wasn’t the only time I saw him that evening. That was the only time I managed to catch him on film. This is a small town Miss, and the rest of us were all accounted for. I’m gonna catch that bastard one of these days.”
“You’ve seen him more than once?” Daniel blurted out.
“I sure have!”
“Has he done anything bad?” Miranda asked, concerned because if Rusty really had seen a vampire, he had seen a noc.
“Nothing yet besides spying, but you can be sure it’s for some abominable purpose.”
“Ah, of course, he’s a vampire, so what else could he be up to? Say, are there girl vampires around here as well?” Miranda threw Rusty a curveball.
“I haven’t thought about that. I’ve never seen any of them around.” Rusty scratched his head through his station master hat, making it tip back and forth.
“I wonder what they would look like,” Daniel continued dreamingly. “Girl vampires with their pale skin shining in the moonlight, red lips against white fangs, and hungry eyes.”
“Alright,” Miranda giggled. “You’ve seen too many movies.”
“That’s no joke, son,” Rusty interfered. “I’m sure female vampires are three times as deadly. But that boy in the photo, he’s real!”
“So how do you know he’s a vampire?” Miranda asked again. “Why not an asylum escapee, a serial killer, a burglar, or a foreign spy?” She figured the options were plenty in the company of a vivid imagination.
“Have the two of you never heard of the stories about our local vampires? I mean, how they came about, and the crazy scientist that used to live here, the one who was obsessed with vampires?”
“No!” they both answered.
“Dr. Rugenn,” Rusty said slowly while his eyes refocused into some unoccupied space. Miranda felt the onset of a childhood flashback, where a trill from a harp would sound an audio cue for the page to be turned in her storybook. Daniel and Miranda sat down and adjusted into more comfortable positions, ready for story time.

Lailie looked around the lab from where she sat in her cell corner. She was desperate to do something, anything to manipulate her situation. She wasn’t going to just sit there like a pathetic victim and submit to her circumstance. There was nothing within her reach, not yet anyway, so she imagined what she could do with the various objects in the lab if she did happen to get an opportunity to reach for something.

The janitor eyed her curiously from across the floor. He scrubbed the same spot, over and over, looking busy while absent in his task. Her gaze landed on him next, and while his actions remained aloof, she could tell excitement lit up within his skull. He kept scrubbing, looking inconspicuous from his 3/4 orientation with his head slightly tilted towards her. Swish-swish, swish-swish, the rhythm of the mop sounded unbrokenly. His eyeballs were angled almost out-of-socket in an awkward position, now fixed on hers with intensity. Lailie shuddered with disgust. In his mind, she was sure the scene of a porn was playing out. In his mind, she was probably begging for him to save her from the inescapable lust she must be feeling from his manly presence. Swish-swish.

The longer she held his gaze the more excited he became. Still operating his mop mechanically in one spot, a confident smile formed and soon a subtle rocking of his pelvis joined the movement. It became increasingly difficult for Lailie to keep an encouraging appearance under the revulsion she felt. The hair on the janitor’s forehead clung from the perspiration of the thrill, and he licked his lips seductively. His eyes were still fixed on hers intensely. Swish-swish.

What could bridge the spell and make him a future tool among all the other objects in the lab? Lailie knew she had to give him something so he would yearn for more.

She slowly unbuttoned her coveralls with his gaze following. Swish – the mop stopped. He wiped his forehead with the back of his trembling hand, and he licked his lips again, this time from the thirst of anticipation. Lailie gently pushed the opening of her coveralls to one side while adjusting her torso forward, exposing her small breast. The janitor’s mouth hung open now. In his mind, his rough callus hands were already caressing her pearly white skin and he was already tasting her rose nipple. Perfectly still, she allowed time to intensify his desire.

An uncontrollable urge hypnotically drew him towards her cell, but then footsteps could be heard approaching in the corridor. Lailie quickly buttoned her coveralls and the janitor turned to mop a new spot. Swish-swish. As the lab filled with a team of scientists, the janitor kept gazing back at her, now in shy spurts while mopping randomly. Swish-swish.

Yes – it has been done! NOCS: Nocturnal Illumination is now available on Amazon as an e-book. Now that the sequel is available, I feel more confident about marketing the series. Now I’m also free to focus on the other books, probably putting the book that picks up where the sequel left off first, while adding to the two prequels here and there as I always have.

Spoiler Snippet:

In the city, the rain had drizzled down for days non-stop. It was cold rain with a chilling dampness that would sneak its way through every fiber no matter how many layers of sweaters, coats or parkas people would cover themselves with. The days were also getting darker and colder. Lailie was still in the city and muttered to herself with blue frozen lips, cursing the lasting fate of their unbearable despair. She took the shortcut through the dark park surrounding one of the city’s majestic churches. The church was lit by spotlights arranged in different angles from the ground, casting shadows on its stone walls, making everything look peacefully sinister. Everything else was dark, for a human. Lailie’s emotions were on edge, but her superior senses still picked up on her stalker. The man’s pace quickened and closed in on her as they neared the darkest part of the path on the church ground, but Lailie pretended to be unaware of his presence until he was in mid-air assault. She swiftly turned on her assailant and hissed. In a split second, the man fully realized he was facing his judgment day instead of another helpless victim. She disarmed him with little effort and descended on him like a wild animal in cold rage. It was marvelous the way she cut through his helpless human defenses with skill and speed, her hair fanning through the cold air, catching a silver lining from the ominous church light…

October 11, 2015

My goodness! I read the draft below and realized my life had gotten more stressful and complicated since that date. Once again I’ve had to rearrange my life to make room for what I love – writing! I’m more determined than ever to publish the Sequel, Nocturnal Illumination, and to get Nocs into print.

A preview you say? Alright, here’s a small tidbit, not too revealing:

“They had probably given up hope by now and Miranda had faded to a dear memory framed on her mother’s piano. ‘It’s a shame. She was so young,’ could probably be heard between tea slurping at the memorial in her mother’s home. Miranda wondered how long it took to have a missing person declared dead. Then she remembered she didn’t know how long she had been gone anyway since she wasn’t counting the days. At least Varian wouldn’t give up on her. Varian – he had waited seven long years for her, perhaps he would be faithful to her no matter what, holding on to her memory as he turns into an old wrinkled pale noc wearing prescription shades and denture fangs attached with adhesive.”

January 6, 2015

I’ve had a really busy six months, and my laptop which I used to carry with me almost everywhere, like an extra limb, broke in its hinges. It became stationary on my desk and I gave less and less time to editing the sequel. With no travels planned in the near future and my new little Asus 2-in-1 laptop, I’m once again carrying my book[s] with me everywhere, finding moments to edit here and there.

This is how writing gets done – you allow your circumstances to revolve around that focus, that story, those characters, and you carry them around everywhere you go, and they always reside somewhere in your mind. It’s not about setting aside half an hour everyday, between your yoga and favorite TV show, not for me anyway. My writing is never scheduled because it takes place as often as I have a moment.

Besides editing the sequel, bits of the other stories reveal themselves to me as well. I have chunks of an outline for the book that takes place during the renaissance, and I’ve written a first chapter along with other bits on the book about how the nocturnal project came about. Just last week, I wrote the beginning for the book that will take place after the sequel. All in all, I have outlined three more books besides the two that are already written. All I need is time. All I need is time.

]]>https://nocsville.com/2015/10/11/the-sequel-is-coming-along/feed/0wp-headerjessicalangblogIs it time to publish my Kindle book into print?https://nocsville.com/2015/10/03/is-it-time-to-publish-my-kindle-book-into-print/
https://nocsville.com/2015/10/03/is-it-time-to-publish-my-kindle-book-into-print/#commentsSat, 03 Oct 2015 02:33:15 +0000http://nocsville.com/?p=49210/2/2015 Let’s get Nocs on paper. Where to begin? There’s a summary page by Amazon here…let’s see – Create Space, GET STARTED. No wait! I should do some research, right? Here’s someone’s account, and it’s positive. Of course, I used the search sentence: “Is is a good idea to publish with createspace?” What if I try “is it a bad idea to publish with createspace?”

So what about other options? There’s Ingram Spark, and the reviews are good too. So it’s starting to sink in that although I’m not expecting to make money off of this, I’ll be making much less than I thought. Here’s the createspace breakdown.

So here are my two options according to suggestions I’ve read so far: createspace and Ingram Spark – surprice! Yes, there are many other options but I want good distributors, and those two are it, it seems. Now I’m going to take the next natural step – I’m going to sleep on it.

10/3/2015 Saturday Morning – coffee mug in hand!

I’m having an engaging discussion on Facebook with people experienced on the issue, tapping in to all my resources. Allowing my fact checking to work with my overall abstract subconscious conclusions, I’m leaning towards Ingram Spark. Now I’m trying to figure out what the difference is between Ingram Spark and Lightning Source. They belong to the same company and offer the same services…? Also:

Can I publish a book in print with Ingram Spark if it’s already available as an eBook with Amazon Kindle?

10/5/2015 No reply!

So I left this hanging after I wrote to Ingram Spark to find out if there were any conflicts with my book already being published in kindle form. No answer yet. What to do? Pretend it’s all well and find out in due time? I need to check out the specs so I can format my document in InDesign, where the picky graphic designer within me can gain full control of the layout before saving it as a press quality print PDF and send it off to the press.

10/9/2015 – Still no reply!

My goodness! The largest publisher IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, and no reply. I haven’t even received any spam, despite agreeing to receiving their stuff so I could submit my question. Did I mistype my email? Well, another weekend and I’m moving forward…

10/17/2015 – Nocs in print – what size?

Page count, word count, font, font size, leading…what size is right for Nocs? It was time to do some research. I found a great blog article that lead me to a great source for finding word counts for printed books. I picked several paper backs off my own book shelf, compared size with word count and checked readability. I don’t want my text to be too small. I also don’t want my book to be too large, too thin and flimsy. Just for fun, check out these results:

Now you can see that a page number isn’t a very reliable source when telling the length of a book. Here are Ingram Spark’s listed available print sizes. Judging by my list of books and considering their physical thickness as well, Nocs, and the sequel, who are both in the 80,000 word count range, would be too thick and require too small of a print for a 4″ x 7″ size pocket book. I’m thinking 5″ x 8″ will do the trick – look good, have legible text that isn’t too condensed, and allow for good size margins. Next step: look up specs and set up my InDesign document.

10/25/2015 – It’s been done!

Finally – the files have been submitted to Ingram Sparks, and I set the date for Nocs to be available on November 7. Sort of random, I know, but despite being a graphic artist I had some trouble shooting and moved the date up. The submissions kept getting refused due to the documents including transparency, which wasn’t true, and which is why the PDF setting to flatten any transparency wasn’t available. There was no transparency in my InDesign documents, but it did link to Photoshop, vector and PNG files. I take it either the alpha channel (transparency channel) was causing the extra confusion, or the fact that I forgot to change the color mode to CMYK from RGB. Either way, it’s been fixed and I can now move on to getting the sequel published on Kindle. I ordered my first copy, and we’ll see how it turned out.

4/9/2016

It’s been a while because it took a while, to re-upload a new file and finally have it apply. I don’t think I can recommend Ingram Sparks. There’s no communication – you’re on your own. But – the book is available in hard copy here!

]]>https://nocsville.com/2015/10/03/is-it-time-to-publish-my-kindle-book-into-print/feed/2booksjessicalangblogNocsAsBookNocs-CoverThe Negotiating Human Mindhttps://nocsville.com/2015/08/03/the-negotiating-human-mind/
https://nocsville.com/2015/08/03/the-negotiating-human-mind/#respondMon, 03 Aug 2015 01:53:28 +0000http://nocsville.com/?p=451The bell tolled in Giotto’s Bell Tower only a stone cast away and Piero instinctively synchronized each thrust to the reverberating chime, sending a pleasant tremor through Luisa’s naked body. Surely this was a sign from God. She had been told it was a sin, but everyone knew that Florence’s new bell tower thundered the word of God. She had also been taught to guide her soul by the good feelings righteous deeds produced, and her love for Piero felt more than good; it felt heavenly. Surely God was giving his approval, knowing the couple was soon to be wed. It was against her father’s permission, but God’s will outweighs man’s.

It was first in a dream that Luisa had her vision from God. She saw herself with Piero in Rome, kneeling down in St. Peter’s Basilica, merging their souls in holy matrimony. Angels rejoiced and showered them with blessings; a divine choir echoed through the great halls. She knew then she had God’s blessing and Piero agreed. The symbolism was obvious to him: St. Peter held the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and to be wed in his basilica was surely a promise, and as he held the key to Luisa’s heart, entry to intimacy was sanctified by the highest authority. Louisa could not object to such flawless logic.

However, their pact with God was secret, and they could not be found out. Piero left the building first, and strolled down the dirty cobblestones on a mock quest, looking rather determined. His focus changed as he heard a disturbance in the distance; the growing amplitude of a crowd on the move. Just as Louisa stepped outside, an angry mob rounded the corner a few blocks down the street. They were rallied up, armed and furious. The young couple looked at each other with alarm. Louisa couldn’t help but wonder if it was directed towards the two of them. Maybe her father had found them out and had now ordered Piero’s arrest? She called to her lover, “Piero run!” Piero, however, stood petrified in place, so Louisa instinctively ran up to him and shielded him while begging the mob for mercy. Surely God would protect him to ensure their promised destiny.

The mob came to a halt while the couple held their breaths. There was hope until an old matron pointed at them yelling, “That is Luisa de Medici – get her! Let’s get all of them!” The mob resumed with frenzy.

Before Louisa could react a spear entered her abdomen and she felt it tug and exit out her back. Her eyes watered from the pain and her vision blurred as she looked up to face the distorted snarls of the crowd. Her hands cradled the shaft where warm blood was gushing out in pulsating intervals. She stood in shock for a moment, and then another woman hit her in the head with a brick. She fell and lost the grip of Piero’s arm as he was being pulled away, screaming, and when the spear hit the ground and forced her into an awkward landing, pain shot through her entire conscious being. Her sight went dark, and she curled up in agony for a brief moment before giving in to her fate. Her body submitted to the throbbing pain and she became still. Someone kicked her lifeless body to make sure she was dead, and the mob continued down the street, satisfied that she was done for. Louisa was left lying in the street with her senses receding, her mind somehow holding on a bit longer.

Fool – how could she let Satan trick her so? Her love for Piero, was it not good – was it not divine? In her increasingly confused mind, she imagined Cupid escaping her trust and flee to avoid any association with her, Louisa, the harlot. How could she have imagined herself as anything but a petty sinner, able to bleed and die like any Medici?

Louisa spent her last conscious moment fully faced with the reality of her fate – she was going to burn in hell. Her body twitched one last time, before she was snatched away, spear and all, and flung into the eternal fires of hell. Satan laughed mockingly, and Louisa de Medici was no more.

]]>https://nocsville.com/2015/08/03/the-negotiating-human-mind/feed/0LouisajessicalangblogBeetle in Flighthttps://nocsville.com/2015/05/09/beetle-in-flight/
https://nocsville.com/2015/05/09/beetle-in-flight/#respondSat, 09 May 2015 19:12:45 +0000http://nocsville.com/?p=372It had been a long journey, and now Emily found herself at the Taberg look-out view. The city lay sprawled by the bank of a great lake in the distance below the foot of the mountain. From where she was standing, the path took a sharp turn downward. No road had been built to safely zig-zag down the slope, instead, the city plan had been lost in a tangled path through miles of red tape. What remained was an old dirt road from a pre-dynamite era where villagers had taken the easy but very steep road straight down.

She took a deep breath and hopped back into her Volkswagen and glanced at the warning signs one last time. Sure, her car could crawl, but the road was still muddy from the rain. She would have to drive really slow with her foot on the brakes. At least there was a fence at the bottom of the slope, in case she would miss the turn before the next drop. She started downward. All was well. She was in control. The greatest challenge was to keep the car at a speed of 5 mph., especially since the tire ruts from previous traffic grew along the path.

Now she regretted taking the detour into the small city. Her mom had talked her into going on this blind date. Yes, her mother. The poor guy was probably as apprehensive as she was, humoring his own mom. They were to meet by the town square fountain. As cheesy as it sounds, he would recognize her by her red scarf, and she would identify him by the red rose he would hold. This too had been arranged by their mothers. She could still hear her mother’s persuasive voice in her head: “He’s a lovely boy and he owns his own towing business. He’s very responsible”.

The thick muddy tracks became increasingly dispersed, and she had to speed up to jump them, then hit the brakes. Emily became increasingly concerned as the car became more difficult to control. She was almost at the end of the first slope now, where the fence clung to whatever shrubbery it was surrounded by. It was impossible to turn around and go back uphill. Her Beetle had come to a stop, and she gathered up the courage to hit the gas pedal along with a daring maneuver to turn her car and follow what was normally an easy left turn. The turn, however, slid a few extra joyful degrees and the Beetle’s heavy behind dragged her a few inches backward for every inch Emily tried to make the wheels spin forward. The car was now sliding towards the fence, like a pea in a strainer.

The rain had started again and it added to the already wet terrain. The mud was no longer just mud, but an abstract geological animation. The Beetle hit the fence, but it wasn’t the first to do so. There were a few abandoned cars stuck in the mud pushing against the fence. Emily rolled down her window and observed the loosened soil uproot the greenery beneath in a stream of continuous rainwater. Panic hit too late. The fence broke loose, and all Emily could do was cling to her steering wheel, close her eyes and hold her breath. The car, it’s breakout companions, and all the shrubbery went over the cliff and splashed down to a small plateau below.

Emily exhaled along with the splash landing. That wasn’t so bad compared to the doom she had imagined. They seemed safe, only, everything kept on moving.

When Emily looked out the window again, she didn’t see mud, but a flood of merging rainwater. The Beetle continued on the path as if on a log flume. Where was that next exhilarating drop? The path intensified and the door refused to open against the pressing force of the stream.

She was closing in on the town now, just below. It had been conveniently placed next to the formation of a rock wall at the foot of the mountain. The small car ping-ponged between rocks and splashed down a waterfall onto the last plateau behind the rest of the cars. A dam had formed and natural barriers stopped them from going further. When the Beetle arrived at the scene, it was out crowded. It hit the racked cars like a billiard ball and made a 45 degree turn towards the one pocket free of barriers. The small beetle took flight.

Emily curled up in her seat and prepared for the crash. The nose of the bug hit hard and shook her violently inside the tight cabin. There was a strange buoyancy to the collision, however. Emily opened her eyes, surprised that she was still alive. Her whole body was throbbing with pain and her vision blurred from the vibration her brain had endured. She leaned back and closed her eyes again, releasing the tension of her limbs. The car settled and bobbed to the rhythm of the clattering rain. That’s when she heard voices.

Someone knocked on her window and opened her door. “Miss, are you okay?” Feeling disoriented, Emily focused her vision on the elderly man as he patiently waited for her to respond. He was standing in knee-high water, holding an umbrella. Her mind quickened and she surveyed her surroundings. The little bug had landed in the fountain of the town square, and it was surrounded by crowds of curious onlookers. She sat up to make sure her bones were still aligned and her limbs able to move. “Yes, I think so,” she finally answered. The gentleman smiled and reached out a hand to carefully help her out of the car. An ambulance arrived, shortly followed by a news team.

While Emily’s condition was evaluated by the first responder, she wondered how her little car was holding up as it was dragged out of the fountain and lifted onto the street by a tow truck. Once the Beetle was secured, the tow truck driver grabbed her belongings and pushed his way through the crowd. Everything was was wet, and while she checked the contents of her purse, the tow truck driver squeezed the water out of her red scarf. The red scarf – her mother would be so disappointed. “Don’t worry about your car – I’ll take it to the shop,” he told her while giving her a reassuring smile along with a red rose.

Cameras flashed and the news team was held at bay. Emily’s Beetle in flight became big news in the small town, and she was celebrated as a miracle. She had survived Hell’s Steep during the heaviest rain season of the century, and the knot of the red tape that had prevented the city plans for a new road was quickly untangled while Emily’s love life became willingly entangled.

]]>https://nocsville.com/2015/05/09/beetle-in-flight/feed/0beetlejessicalangblogCaught in an Escherhttps://nocsville.com/2015/01/10/caught-in-an-escher/
https://nocsville.com/2015/01/10/caught-in-an-escher/#respondSat, 10 Jan 2015 23:30:49 +0000http://nocsville.com/?p=358A short story:(Based on an actual dream – so yes, a bit strange.)

It suddenly occurred to her that there were no other women around. She was so used to women being outnumbered by men in the technical field she didn’t notice the other girls had left. The room was slightly wobbling before her and she took another sip of the cheap concoction of soda and rum one of the guys had offered her. She was surrounded by devious smiles, but before her inner red flag could urge her out the door, one of the boys grabbed her arm and pulled her into a forced dance. The other guys laughed and she felt caught in a game where she was nothing but an object of entertainment.

She had trouble making sense of the situation. Just earlier that day, the same boys had treated her with respect, giving her shy glances and feeling privileged at any opportunity to come to her aid. They were all taking the same course of certifications, and the spontaneous student party seemed like a fun invitation, but she never suspected that she would become the party.

He swung her around and cradled her tight in his arms. She could feel his wet breath on the back of her neck, and to the audience’s delight, he started to raise her shirt, exposing her abdomen. When his hands continued to cup her bra, something finally snapped within her and she stomped his foot with her heal. He released her in a howl and she flew out the door while the boys were still preoccupied with laughter. She ran all the way to her room and stood to pant in terror as the boys’ mocking smiles flashed before her mind.

The next morning class was awkward, and the boys’ eyes circumvent hers in shame as they delivered discrete apologies. She didn’t feel like joining any of her classmates for lunch that day but walked over to the main building by herself. Although the campus wasn’t far from the city outskirts, it was surrounded by farmland. The campus itself had been converted from a huge Victorian-era plantation once employing hundreds. The main building was several stories tall, and the cafeteria occupied most of the first floor. Despite its size, she had trouble finding a place to sit, so she joined a line of people winding itself up a staircase to the second floor where more space had been made available due to a special event.

She was still carrying anxiety from the previous night and soon lost her patience for the slow-moving crowd. I’ll sit anywhere, she thought, and made a detour on the first landing and headed towards a hallway in the opposite direction. The hallway only took her to another flight of stairs, so she headed further up. The staircase, however, didn’t lead to a third floor but continued to what must be the fourth, and then to another hallway. She started feeling apprehensive when the hallway took her to yet another flight of stairs. She started to go back down and once again ended up in a hallway on the third floor which took her back in the same direction as the last staircase, even though she didn’t remember it stopping at a third floor. She walked back up to the fourth floor and confirmed that she had indeed walked in a loop, so she continued once again but chose to walk all the way up to the top fifth floor this time.

Another short hallway on the fifth floor lead to yet another, but there was hope – she saw light filtering through the otherwise unlit interior. Her sight was temporarily blinded before her eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine breaking through the tall multi-paned windows of a study. She was immediately struck by the many curious items cluttering the room: an old sextant, a dusty Cuban cigar case, vinyl records, CD’s, leather-bound books, shiny soft covers, an old cassette player, an antique stereoscope… She jumped when he spoke to her, and items flew off the lunch tray she was still carrying.
“I’ve been here for a very long time,” he said casually as if it was supposed to make sense somehow.
She turned to face a young man, and his appearance was almost as mixed up in time as the rest of the study’s content. She couldn’t help but stare, immobilized by her own lack of comprehension.
“Welcome to my quarters,” the young man continued as he swung his arm in a gesture to introduce her to the place. It was the fact that he seemed so nervous around her that she relaxed a bit. Still, she stood there for an awkward moment until the gentleman offered to take her tray. Once he managed to find a place for it he quickly cleared a carved velvet armchair and offered her a seat, but she was too distracted by the curious artifacts of the room.

She turned about in the center of the room with her eyes scanning walls and shelves with great interest. The young man studied her patiently, then apologized in shame:
“I’m so sorry I brought you here.”
“Brought me here?” she finally spoke to him and it made him smile.
“Yes, you see, I can never leave, but I can have things brought here.” He paused before continuing, “And things I bring here never leave.” He motioned to the clutter of items and waited for her to make a connection. She didn’t, because it didn’t make sense. She questioned his sanity and thought it best to just play along until she found a friendly opportunity to depart.

While she played her part and treated his every suggestion as completely sensible, he felt encouraged to introduce the rest of his lair. By reason she should have felt an inner alarm, warning her to get out and away, but the young man was too sweet, courteous and so happy in her company, she felt sympathetic.

The study included a narrow spiral staircase that continued to an upper level, and then another and she made a mental note to look for it on the outside of the building because she couldn’t remember having seen a tower before. On the uppermost level he was anxious to show her the view, and as she bent forward to look out the aging window panes she was struck by the beauty of the fields sprawled beneath. Everything looked more vibrant from the view of the tower. The green fields and the blue sky bathed in sunlight, and she could spot the bright colors of what people wore with such clarity, even if they seemed so far away. Yet, it was so quiet up in the tower, it felt as if everything below was a world apart.

“That’s where I first saw you,” he said.
She turned to look at him, astounded. He looked a bit hesitant, not sure how to proceed. He combed his long unruly brown locks back and scratched the short stubs that lined his jaw and motioned to a back corner of the room. It was filled with computer monitors and a messy desk cluttered with digital equipment. Then he continued, again as if it ought to make sense to her:
“Then I followed you from there.”
“Followed me from here?” she answered as a great follow-up to her first comment.
“Wait, let me show you,” he said and went to turn everything on.

As the monitors lit up with views from the many security cameras on campus, so did her comprehension, right before a chill went up her spine. He had followed her activity on camera? It was time to leave. She felt an urgency to get out and away from her stalker’s lair before something turned the situation into something more sinister. She recalled how perfectly decent guys had just turned predatory the night before and knew she had a naïve side to consider. Her stalker didn’t notice her sense of alarm and continued:
“It’s when I saw this that I felt the need to bring you here.”
She turned in response and there it was, the scene from the night before, caught on video. She felt nauseous, but he continued explaining:
“You got away that time, but things could turn worse during a second opportunity. The most sensible men can turn into sexual predators when egging each other on under the influence. It starts as a game and quickly escalates with each step of mutual encouragement. They feel justified under communal approval.”

She just stared at him, ready to flee. Her stalker was warning her? Was he unaware of his own predatory nature? Movie horror scenes flashed before her mind. Surely there were mutilated bodies hidden behind the walls, or maybe he had a stuffed corpse of a mother speaking to him from his split personality, urging him to kill her. He seemed so sweet and innocent he was bound to have a dark and disturbing side.

She slowly stepped back towards the staircase, watching him carefully before turning to descend. Her limbs felt stiff and her head dizzy, but she knew she had to get away. He stepped up to the staircase and looked down at her.
“You can’t get away from here!”
She looked back up at him. He said it with such great concern, and his warm brown eyes looked at her so lovingly, it convinced her to rebel against her naïve self with even greater determination. She picked up her pace when he followed her.
“I don’t want to scare you, but I have been stuck here for a long time. Nothing leaves, nothing changes, trust me. I haven’t aged since I walked into this room in 1865.” His voice was pleading. Why she wondered. If she couldn’t leave, why did he try to stop her?
“I just don’t want you to go into shock like I first did when I discovered the truth about this place,” he answered as if he had read her thoughts. “We can be happy here, you and I.”
Now she knew he was insane. She glanced at him before descending the second spiral staircase. He looked at her as if he really was starving from human company. There was not a doubt in her mind that he believed his own delusion.

Just as she was about to exit the study into the hallway, he grabbed her tray and pleaded:
“Please, don’t forget your lunch. I mean no harm, really. I will keep my distance. I’ll let you adjust and we can get to know each other slowly. It’s not so bad being stuck here. It’s comfortable and safe. You will never have to worry about anything ever again.”
She looked at him with pity, not fear, before she headed towards the hallway beyond and the many stairways.

Her emotional confusion made the maddening descent worse. There was no logic to the architectural layout and she felt as if she was endlessly trapped in an Escher drawing on a path to nowhere but eternal impossibilities.

When she finally made it down to the cafeteria she was hit with a wave of sound and activity so contrasting she lost her balance, grabbed the last newel and slid down to a sitting. The crowd she’d intended to escape imposed on her space once again. Nothing seemed real or made sense anymore. After a few breaths of recovery, she ran outside and circled the large five-story building, but saw no tower. As confusing as the Escher stairs were, she tried to recount her steps. No, there had to be a tower. This led her to suddenly questioning everything, including the intent of her tower host. The only ill intent had been in her own interpretation, right?

She turned her head involuntarily at the holler of her classmates, among them her predatory dance partner as they crossed the field to get back to class. No, that reality was stranger than anything she was ready to face. She ran back into the main building and started to look for security cameras and found one. She looked straight into the camera, and knew she was looking straight into his eyes, and voiced a silent, “I’m coming back”. And then she turned and started the ascent back into Escher’s staircase.

]]>https://nocsville.com/2015/01/10/caught-in-an-escher/feed/0stereoscopejessicalangblogWhat is beauty but a fractal unison viewed through a Kaleidoscope?https://nocsville.com/2014/10/01/what-is-beauty-but-a-fractal-unison-viewed-through-a-kaleidoscope/
https://nocsville.com/2014/10/01/what-is-beauty-but-a-fractal-unison-viewed-through-a-kaleidoscope/#commentsWed, 01 Oct 2014 00:50:00 +0000http://nocsville.com/?p=189Nocs came about after I read another book and was disappointed by the overkill of magic and magical creatures, but what also bothered me was the author’s consistent denial of beauty in her lead female characters. It was usually made a strong point, that the lead female character was plain – not beautiful. Alright, I can see that the author was rejecting the traditional fairy tale take on stock characters. Why do the most beautiful women only get to have all the adventure, the princes, the castles, the happy ever afters? Let’s put a plain and normal girl in the role – it could happen to her too, right?

So why did that bother me?

Well, what I was wondering was why the character wasn’t viewed as beautiful? You see, I tend to think of most people as beautiful in one way or another. It takes some severe deformation for me to shudder and wonder what a person did in an earlier life to piss off the gods so severely, but perhaps even then, if I get to know them, I’ll think of them as lovely. I’m extremely influenced by someone’s character in my judgment of their beauty and I reject the phrase Beauty is Only Skin Deep. (Yeah-yeah, I get its meaning.) So, am I saying that the beauty of someone’s personality should be considered along with their outer appearance? Well that’s true too, I suppose, but no, I’m saying that the beauty of their personality actual alters how we view their physical appearance. We tend to think of people as more beautiful if we like them or love them. So back to the author’s lead females – why didn’t she consider her lead characters as beautiful? (Again, I know what she was going for, but I beg to rebel.)

So okay, we’re also influenced by cultural ideals and personal associations. In Nocs, Miranda is described as being beautiful in a universal sense, meaning she’s generally described as beautiful by most. Why did I make her beautiful?

In the defense of fairy tale

I want a story to take me to the extraordinaire: not only the beautiful but to the glamorous or action-packed stuff I never experience in my own small life. It’s a nice escape. It takes a lot of gut, and denial, to claim we don’t care about beauty, in any form. If you truly bought into your preschool teachers ideological myth that it’s only what’s on the inside that matters, well, I’d refer to what sociologists call the Looking Glass Self. It’s simply not that simple, and if it was, why do we give a &#$%* about other pretty things? How is Mona Lisa beautiful if we can’t see her inner beauty? We all seek beauty – in the world around us, in the details of our lives; curtains, jewelry, cars. We apply ideals of beauty to the human form, too. So, I made my characters beautiful – Miranda is pretty and Daniel is handsome. Varian is cool looking and has extraordinary attributes. There are many ways someone can be special, and beauty is one attribute we all appreciate. And as you read on, you’ll discover that I describe all of my “good” characters as attractive in one way or another.

We also like to identify with characters in stories. When we enter a story, we experience everything with the characters, and you know what, I enjoy being young and beautiful, having an adventure, falling in love, triumph over the antagonist etc. This is what a story allows me to do. I made Miranda beautiful and interesting so I could be those things alongside with her. I bet most of us have an inner beauty concept quite deserving of the idea, and rightfully so. It’s a transcendental part of ourselves – as long as we aren’t abused beyond self-value, it’s a birthright to have a concept of ourselves as beautiful. We know the rest is just frivolous societal influences. In our minds, if we really lived in that fairy tale land…

Well, that was until I started asking around. I posed the question to a couple of female co-workers in the break-room at my day-job, “How do you prefer your female lead character in a book to look like?” The answer was “average,” so they could relate to the character they told me. Next, I asked what the lead man should look like, and one of the women instantly proclaimed “super hot!”